


pears

by alanxna, clairelutra



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: ....i hope that tag implies what i hope it implies, F/M, Food Kink, Oblivious Attraction, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-19 02:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29619216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alanxna/pseuds/alanxna, https://archiveofourown.org/users/clairelutra/pseuds/clairelutra
Summary: Watching Numair eat that pear was absolutely fascinating.
Relationships: Numair Salmalín/Veralidaine Sarrasri
Comments: 10
Kudos: 31





	pears

**Author's Note:**

> thread title: 100 words of pears  
> nonny1: Are you going to clutch them?  
> nonny2: Yes, in my cruel, cruel hands, just before I take a big juicy bite out of them.
> 
> ...i'm 90% sure that that was a reference to a meme joke/typo i missed but i have no desire to wade back though hundreds of comments of wank to figure out what it was, so we'll just stick with our well-clutched pears.
> 
> including the exchange because it's what inspired the fic.

Watching Numair eat that pear was absolutely fascinating.

Daine couldn't rightfully say _why_ it was so fascinating. It was Numair. It was a fruit. She'd seen Numair eat fruit plenty of times before, and it had never been a particularly hypnotic experience.

Something about the way the green looked against his dark face, maybe, or the way his white teeth flashed when he bit into the meat of the thing. It was a particularly juicy pear, and his large, deft hands were shiny with liquid in places—liquid he periodically lapped up with an equally deft tongue, occasionally stopping to seal his lips over his skin and suck. His mouth, of course, didn't escape the coating of juice either, no matter how clean he tried to be with it. The pear was simply too ripe.

He was seated across the table from her in the great hall, holding a book aloft with his magic so as not to risk damaging it with food or drink, absolutely absorbed in the text and inoffensively consuming a piece of the season's earliest bounties—and Daine's own meal lay forgotten in front of her, her fork loaded and her mind miles away as she watched him.

The ease with which he flipped the pages of the book without touch added to it a bit, glittering black magic taking the place of sticky fingers with only a faint wave of his hand (and she knew he didn't even need that, but also knew that he tended to illustrate his more thoughtless gestures when distracted). The lighting in the hall played off the definition of his tanned forearms, bared as they were by his light shirt, and caught on a sparkling drop of juice he'd missed. It left a trail of _wet_ as it rolled down his forearm.

He raised his forearm to his mouth so he could lick that away too, nearly enveloping the pear in his big hand as he followed the trail back up to the heel of his palm, the movement all the more engrossing for how _brisk_ and _efficient_ it was.

She knew he was good with his hands—she had seen the sorts of workings he created, and even watched him work them from time to time—and for some reason, seeing him handle the fruit, while not necessarily the most impressive of feats, was putting her in mind of it. Maybe it was that the unconscious delicateness of his touch showed how aware he was of the limits of his surroundings, or how it only took the slightest tweak of a thumb and forefinger to spin the pear to a lesser-touched side for the biting.

"...Is everything alright, magelet?"

Daine startled out of her trance, noting with some disappointment that the pear had been nibbled down to its core, and glanced up at his messy, gentle (and certainly attractive) face, feeling her heart jump and stumble oddly.

It was only now that he'd stopped that she realized that her gut was tight and hot and her lungs didn't seem to want to fill all the way on the inhale.

Oh.

 _That_ was why.

Resisting the urge to check her overwarm cheek for a blush, she sighed and shoved the forgotten bite into her mouth, not tasting it at all. "Finer'n fox fur, thank you kindly," she muttered.

He gave her another strange look, then went back to his book, the core of the pear abandoned on his plate.

 _At least it hadn't been a peach,_ she thought morosely, and kicked away the stray temptation to hand him one, just... to see.


End file.
